Tag Archive

Got hit hard with the plague out here. Nasty upper and lower respiratory infections all around. Disgusting and debilitating, right at the launch of the Switch. Bleh.

I want to catch up on a few things I would have otherwise posted about individually in a more timely manner.

Mass Effect Andromeda Blunder?

Mass Effect Andromeda is making news for all the wrong reasons. The overall impressions of the game are coming in mixed from people who have played, but the mockery over the character models, animations, or gameplay is overwhelming.

I don’t feel like subscribing to EA access to play the first 10 hours, so I haven’t tried it myself. I’ve played all of the other installments in the series and liked them well enough, but I think I’ll ultimately wait for the reviews before committing.

Dark Age of Account Creation

A good friend of mine and I started up characters on Uthgard and I think we’re like 17’ish. We’re thinking about making to switch over the the actual DAOC servers now. I’m not sold on the idea since I can’t imagine myself competing in RvR or PvE for that matter with people who have 10+ years of no reset (hard or soft) on me.

Trying to make an account has been an exercise in futility. First I tried signing up for an account and it kept telling me my emails were claimed. Huh? Then I realized it’s linked with EA’s account system. Huh again… I thought Broadsword owned it now? Is Broadsword EA? Using EA’s servers? What’s the situation here. Then I tried to sign up for a trial and couldn’t get that to work because apparently the accounts I have — which would be used for a trial — can’t be? So I have to create another account with an email I don’t have in order to take advantage of it? Having an account that isn’t linked to DAOC was requiring a key. I got frustrated and gave up. Not great for potential players to face these struggles.

I don’t want to seem whiny or ignorant or unwilling to try, so I’ll give it another go this weekend.

World of Aint No One Got Time for That

I put myself on hiatus from WoW. I was down to only logging in for raids, and with my work schedule being what it is and trying to find time to do ANYTHING else with the free time I do have, I couldn’t be tied to a schedule. So I’m now officially off WoW again.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing up until the end there. Raiding does weird things to people and twists games into knots. We all know that, though. Raiding just isn’t for me anymore. I’ll simply have to try and remember that before I ever consider jumping in again.

I’m sorry for the record slowdown around here. This past week was crazy with a few game launches and RL stuff.

Civilization VI

Graev and I both picked up Civ 6. I’ll be the very first to admit that I’m not as familiar with Civ as I thought I was from playing Civ 4. I get the general idea of how to play, how to take a turn, the general ideas, etc. What I don’t have down at all are the strategies or “best practices” of how to play.

My games are always SO DANG LONG. Is that normal? Right now I chalk it up to not having a strategy, therefore spending hours going in multiple directions when I should be focusing on one solid victory.

Gears of War 4

I think Graev and I are making good progress in Gear 4. We’ve come across a few major reveals in the story, and I can tell they’ve definitely set themselves up for a new trilogy.

This is one I still plan to more formally write my thoughts on, but for now I’m happy to say it’s fun and I recommend it for fans of the previous games.

WoW

KGC is still progressing in raids. We’ve moved into Heroics now, and plan to pick up the pace now that 7.1 is coming out tomorrow. I’m actually going to write another post on 7.1 here this morning.

I want to do a bit of a catch-up post to end January. Is this year really already down by an entire month? Crazy. I have had a really wild past two weeks in terms of everything I have going on. Some of you have left comments with the sentiment that when you focus on your professional lives with the same intensity as you normally would gaming, then you can see some incredible results. I can wholeheartedly agree with and say that I have seen the same outcome myself. Busy is good, but it means sometimes not getting as many posts up as I would like. I’ll figure out a balance.

Personally, I’ve not only improved the work at my day job, but also in my own personal side gig as well as my wife’s music business. I’m doing marketing consulting work on the side for small businesses. I enjoy being able to help companies realize their potential when they actively, and intelligently, properly identify and work toward accomplishing their marketing goals. As for my wife, I’ve done a bit of ‘marketing’ for her as well and she’s grown from having a little website bringing in a little bit of money to a thriving music business where her schedule is packed and she’s thriving — it’s incredibly satisfying to see that happen for her so quickly.

Gaming Lately

My gaming scene has been a little bit weird of late. I finished up all of the Disney Infinity 3.0 games, and I’m finishing up a few games in my backlog. A big part of my play time lately has been invested in Diablo 3’s newest season, but the initial surge is dwindling (thanks to deflating RNG hating me). EQ is still my big obsession. My Cleric is level 18, and I think I like playing him more than my Necromancer! Maybe it’s that I enjoy getting groups.

What I’m Playing Next

I have a few big games coming on my list that I will be writing about and making some videos to show off.

Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii U – Big RPG that I haven’t dived into, but it’s next on my list.

Just Cause 3 – This will be a nice evening go-to game to blow stuff up.

The MMO ‘Drought’

It continues… really, there’s nothing out right now except for EverQuest that comes even close to satisfying a TRUE MMORPG experience. Albion Online is doing a nice job, but still in closed beta until the end of the year. I did promise Werit I would take a video of the private islands — sorry, I haven’t forgotten! I have the video and I’ll upload it for you tonight.

Crazy busy times! Holiday shopping, work, family stuff, helping my wife with her two side businesses, and gaming when I have a few spare minutes have kept me incredibly busy! I have neglected to post much here, but that will be very different this next week. I want to craft a bit of a conglomoblog to address numerous topics.

EverQuest “True Box Server”: Phinigel

Yes! It’s finally upon us. Phinigel launches Wednesday, December 9th. I’m ready to go! My Gnome Necromancer will be moving forward full-speed ahead ready to gain levels and conquer the world of Norrath. By conquer I mean farm plat & gear and get level 50, etc. All in all having a great time in a world I can’t quite seem to ever grow tired of visiting.

Wanting to play with me and my friends? The more the merrier! Let me know and I’ll get you the details you need to join a great group. I plan to continue my “Late Nights in EverQuest” series on Youtube which was waylaid by the announcement of the new server.

Albion Online

I’ve been enjoying the closed beta of Albion Online. At first I was a bit rusty. You’ll see that in the video I am FINALLY uploading tomorrow morning. Sorry for the delay in that… I’ve been promising to upload that for two weeks now. I’ve spent around 10 hours farming materials and overall just acquainting myself with the game.

If you’re looking to join in on what’s shaping up to be a fun and long-lasting UO’ish MMORPG, check out the founders packs.

Space Engineers Adds Planets

Remember that fun sandbox building game in space that Graev and I played in May 2014. We took a couple videos and had a blast playing with some of you. More than a year later the game has apparently developed significantly. There are now planets to explore! I’m going to dive back in and see what’s up in Space Engineers on Tuesday. Might be a fun filler game.

Battlefront

Graev and I have been playing several hours a week of Battlefront on our PS4’s. I recently saw that more people play on the PS4 than the Xbox One and PC COMBINED. While a little surprising, it makes sense. Consoles are the native platform for most games these days, and the PS4 is pretty much the front runner. I’d be curious to see the numbers for Fallout 4.

Welcome back! The holiday weekend is coming to a close, and that means it’s back to games and back to blogging. I think now is a good time to give you guys a conglomoblog with details on what I’ve been up to and where I see things going in the second half of 2015.

Right now there just isn’t a log going on in the MMO sphere. MMOs really are my bread and butter, but over the last two years I have really embraced other avenues of gaming. I’m hoping to see 2016 be a year for MMOs, but that’s a discussion we’ll likely have 6 months from now. In terms of MMOs, you know I am still playing on the EQ progression server and dabbling in ESOTU.

What I’m playing

My two main go-tos right now are Assassin’s Creed Unity and Splatoon. My wife and I are playing Unity together and easily over 25 hours in with a bit more to go. She loves the history, and I love the gameplay of being an assassin in a semi-open-world. I have to say though that Unity is lacking compared to Black Flag and the Ezio series. I just bought Assassin’s Creed Rogue on Amazon (on sale for $9.99 on PS3); Rogue came out at the same time as Unity but received no marketing at all and is actually heralded by many reviewers as one of the best in the entire series. I will definitely write up my thoughts on Rogue upon playing.

Splatoon remains some of the best fun I’ve had on a console. Nintendo has provided continual FREE updates to the game since launch including more weapons, maps, game modes, and special events. The word I would use to best describe Splatoon isn’t a technical term like “FPS” or “Shooter” — Splatoon is a playful game. I hope the attention Nintendo has given to the online game here translates into their new online service coming soon.

Where I want to go…

I’ve decided just now as I write this to hold off on telling you in this post my plans. I’m going to turn that into a post for tomorrow morning. I’ll just throw a teaser in here and say it’s something I have wanted to do for some time but haven’t had the time or the freedom to do so until now.